


in a harsh climate

by arbitrarily



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: (With a Side of Intimidation), Episode Tag, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:55:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/pseuds/arbitrarily
Summary: Calamita and Rabbi make their positions known.
Relationships: Constant Calamita/Rabbi Milligan
Comments: 20
Kudos: 56





	in a harsh climate

**Author's Note:**

> Set after episode 4x03, "Raddoppiarlo," and inspired by me taking one look at the character Constant Calamita (the name alone!) and that great red coat he wears and saying, "oh okay then," and then watching the most recent episode, in particular his and Rabbi Milligan's botched hit on Lemuel Cannon, and saying, "oh _no_." So, yeah. Here we are. Any general content warnings for the show apply here too, including but especially handjobs.

Between the boy and the family, there was never a moment’s peace nor privacy to be had. The brief illusion of it, captured down in the basement workroom of the Fadda house, broke on the heels of Rabbi having scarcely claimed it. Worse still, it was Calamita who served as interruption. His tall frame filled the low doorway.

Nothing new there. Calamita had long served as a looming presence in his life. The past twenty years, there he was, more or less the same as the nattily dressed young man Rabbi had first met, even if age had found him since, his face hollowed, stark and sepulchral.

Rabbi levered himself up to his feet, the toolbox left opened. Twenty years he’d served as custodian to this family—handyman, hired gun, babysitter, double-crosser. Any job, as needed. Damned certain if there was a mess, they’d send him in to clean it up.

Rabbi was empty-handed and he rued his mistake. He still wore his shoulder holster, but he’d left his piece up in his room. The Fadda house was meant to be a safe space. Under Donnatello’s rule, for family and their ancillaries, it had been. That, along with a great many things, had changed, he knew, now that Boss was dead. Now that Gaetano had come home. He eyed Calamita quickly but warily. He’d wager Calamita had at the very least a blade on him. He was without his coat, his shirt crisp and white, unwrinkled despite the late hour and their earlier tussle in his car. His suspenders rested taut against his torso, highlighting the lean, animal lines of his body, no gun on him that Rabbi could see.

“If you’ve come looking for Gaetano, you’re bum out of luck.”

Calamita rolled up his shirtsleeves, a distant and self-satisfied grin barely cracking his thin mouth. He was a dangerous man to be alone with, especially these days, but was’t that true of them all—Rabbi included?

“A funny guy, yeah? Still chuckling,” Calamita said, each word slow yet impatient. His sleeves rolled, he inspected his handiwork. He made Rabbi wait him out then let his arms settle, loose and lethal, his hands at his hips. “I want my pistol back.”

Rabbi gestured at his sides. “I don’t carry it on my person.”

Calamita tutted. “Careless, too.”

Rabbi folded his arms. The evening had gone late. The boy would be sleeping, or he should be soon. “If you’ve come to kill me, I suggest we get on with it. I’m told the radiator in Josto’s office’s still futzing, needs fixing. He’s expecting me,” he added, both for good measure and insurance policy alike.

“If I wanted you dead, Rabbi, it would be so.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.” He took a step forward. Rabbi didn’t move. Calamita’s mouth spread, liquid mercury; he was a rare man who became worse to behold when he smiled. Rabbi didn’t know what it was that showed in his own face, but Calamita caught something. “Are you still frightened of me? As you were when you were a boy?”

“I’m not a complete fool, am I? Though you’ll find I’m much more tired these days. Hard to make the effort.” He dragged a hand through his floppy hair. Tired was an understatement of gargantuan proportion. A man walked twenty years with one foot in the grave and one foot out, it took a toll. To be expected, he supposed. Didn’t improve the matter any. 

Rabbi’s mind worked quickly, tried to sort the play here. Calamita never gave anything he did not want to give—it was impossible to tell which it was that truly brought Calamita down here. This was either a shakedown or he was seeking reassurances. He wanted to know Rabbi wasn’t going to run to Josto, tell him that he had chosen Gaetano’s orders over his own. After the stretch of history they shared, bloodstained as anything else held long enough in the Faddas’ grasp, Rabbi had thought Calamita knew him better than that. Rabbi kept his head down and his mouth shut. He didn’t create trouble, certainly not for himself. Telling Josto? Now there was a surefire way to make trouble.

“Have you spoken to the boss?”

The latter it was then. Rabbi arched an eyebrow. “Meaning Josto or his brother?” He was close enough he heard clearly the _tsk_ sound caught behind Calamita’s teeth. Rabbi let his shoulders relax only the slightest. “No. I haven’t. You gonna give me a reason to reconsider?”

“You won’t.” Calamita had a dirty habit of phrasing inquiries as statements, thinking blunt force was a way to achieve the outcome he wanted, erase any variability afforded via question.

“It’s not my job, you know. To keep you safe from the consequences you earn yourself.”

A tic fluttered at the corner of Calamita’s jaw. The poor lighting, one dim bulb affixed above them, sketched the frightening angles of his face. He looked as if drawn by a bleakly corpse-obsessed artist who understood well the execution of precise shadow and line. He looked to be considering another smile, which, Rabbi knew from experience both firsthand and second never boded well for its recipient. “Bad boy,” Calamita finally said. “You think you know what it is you are doing. That you—what? Hold the cards, as you say? Your hands are empty.”

“Last I recall, I held your pistol in one.”

Calamita moved swiftly. Unstoppable, decisive and confident like a serpent striking, that was one of his greater strengths. Another was catching an opponent off-guard. He pressed his hand to the front of Rabbi’s trousers, a solid weight that made Rabbi want to squirm. He didn’t.

“And what is it in mine?” Calamita said. He had a morbid sense of humor, he’d give him that. Calamita’s other hand pushed at Rabbi’s hip, held him trapped.

His first instinct was to fight against it, the bodily shock of his hands on him, the greater shock at just how much he could actually want that. But Rabbi remained still, even as Calamita’s hand moved against him, the pressure nearly too much. It was gone just as suddenly, his fingers now working his trousers open. Rabbi swallowed rapidly, unsure if it was fear or anticipation he felt or, rather, they were simply birds of the same feather, no daylight in between. The air was too cool on his bared flesh, but then Calamita drew his fingers, long and spindly, searching, down the hardening length of him. Rabbi hissed, anything more caught in the quick clench of his jaw. He would not be embarrassed of himself, he would not give Calamita the satisfaction. He was the one who started this anyhow, a show of strength desperate to find purchase, anyway he could get it. Rabbi could play at that, too. Wildly, Rabbi thought of it as a handshake deal. He had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing.

Calamita’s free hand reached and wrapped around Rabbi’s elbow. He plucked at a sooty stain long ago left in the threadbare fabric. “You’re filthy, you Mick fuck,” but there was no real venom to his tone, or at least nothing more than was usually present. All the same, his grip briefly tightened at the base of his cock and Rabbi fought the desire to arch into it. Calamita was very good at taking a man apart. Rabbi had seen it, the skill literal and exquisite in its gruesomeness, Calamita as casual with a knife and in dismemberment as he was in this.

Rabbi’s breath was shaky when he exhaled. “Not stopping you from tugging at me, now is it?”

Calamita’s eyes were already dark to begin with, often placid in their emptiness, but now they flashed that much darker. He released Rabbi, but before he could feel any amount of relief, he was shoved up against the cold brick wall. Idly, he wondered if it had yet begun to snow.

Calamita bore down on him, like the worst sins one soul could commit brought to walk the earth in one man. Too poetic, perhaps, for anything either of them deserved. Calamita held a hand, palm up, to Rabbi’s mouth.

“Spit,” he said. Ordered. The years with the Faddas and the years before that—Rabbi was good at following orders until he wasn’t. Now though, he did as told. Calamita scowled down at him despite it being his request.

Calamita’s grip around his cock was punishingly tight, warm and wet, and Rabbi sucked in a quick breath. It was akin to the shock of cold on a bad Kansas City night in winter. You knew what was coming but your body still wasn’t prepared to take it, not to that personal extreme.

A tremble had already settled into Rabbi’s knees, his joints, he wanted to moan at the simple pleasure of being touched, context be damned. He marshaled some strength and he tipped his head back against the rough brick. “New tactics, eh, Calamita? Killing with kindness?”

“Shut the fuck up.” His voice was harsh, rasping. Not unaffected, which was too goddamn interesting to fully ignore. Not to goad further.

“Did Gaetano order this too?”

“Shut the fuck up, I said.”

Rabbi did. He resisted the urge to sway into him, to seek additional heat from his body. Calamita’s hand moved quickly, ruthlessly efficient as he was in all things. His grip was firm, he gave no slack, and the flick of his thumb at the slit made him want to whine. Beg, even. He wouldn’t dare. He let his eyes flutter shut, but that felt wrong, as if conceding a fight he had yet to properly parry. He opened his eyes and was met by Calamita’s steady own. A small nod of Calamita’s head, not respect but acknowledgement. That, yes, he would watch, and, yes, he would endure. Curiously, it was Calamita who was panting for breath, audible and louder than Rabbi. His face was menacingly laced with effort and something more, carefully though barely contained and concealed. He leaned in, as if he could not help himself, his teeth gritted and jaw clenched, a ruinous, self-loathing grimace now marring his face as the front of his body nearly brushed against Rabbi’s side. Closer, closer. His nose skipped against the cut of Rabbi’s cheek. It was that which made Rabbi’s breath catch, tight in both his chest and his throat, anticipatory. Hungry. He wanted more, he wanted a gesture of comfort, of affection, though God help him, when didn’t he. To be a traitor was to be a lonely man, a lesson he’d learned and earned twice over already in his life. Come a third time, he was certain he would not survive it.

He could barely survive this. The hand Calamita braced along Rabbi’s hip moved down and back, along his ass. “Christ,” Rabbi spat out, not nearly quick enough to stop himself. Calamita’s fingers bruised and dug into lean muscle, their bodies flush together. Rabbi’s head dropped back. He imagined sinking his teeth into Calamita’s bottom lip, pulling until he bled. He knew he would not do it. If their mouths dared to touch all he would do was kiss him. Unforgivable; he couldn’t live with it. His eyes were half-lidded as he tried to focus on Calamita, tried to watch him. He inhaled the faint smell of sweat and expensive aftershave, the stale scent of pressed laundry. Calamita’s eyes were fixed on Rabbi’s mouth, they were closed, they were on his cock, watching as he fucked into his steady, unceasing grip. Wanting, maybe, just as much as Rabbi did. They all thought they were so different; they were all the fucking same. All looking for their bit of American dirt to conquer. Calamita’s lips brushed too near to Rabbi’s mouth and he waited for him to take more.

Calamaita murmured something quick and rough under his breath, in Italian, and Rabbi was grateful he did not have to understand him. He understood what he said next, a repeated and smug, “Good,” that matched the pace his hand took with his cock. “Good, good, good.” Rabbi keened. He pressed his palms against the tension in Calamita’s arms, as if he could stop him. Stop himself. He felt a tightening low in his abdomen, sweat cold where it broke over his skin. He shivered and braced himself, refusing to give more of himself than he already was. Already had.

Calamita was fastidious, even in this. His hand covered the head of his cock as it twitched and he came.

Calamita stepped back from him, Rabbi’s chest still heaving as if having run a great distance. Calamita’s hand glistened with him. 

One-handed, he flicked his belt open and then the placket of his trousers. It was somehow more obscene, a fully-dressed man with his cock jutting out than if he were to have undressed entirely. His cock, Rabbi was unsurprised to see, was thick, reddened and heavy. It looked good in his hands, well-matched. Rabbi’s own hands itched to touch him. If they liked each other, if they were entirely different people in an entirely different world, Rabbi could see himself. He would get down on his knees, he would take him into his mouth and let him fuck it. He watched as Calamita adopted the same pace he had taken with him. Rabbi slumped back, lazy and boneless. Calamita breathed noisily, his mouth parted, and he watched Rabbi in turn. Despite himself, Rabbi’s eyes kept drifting back down to the wet curl of his fingers as he fucked his hand.

Calamita exhaled; it sounded like the start of a laugh. “If you like it so much, I should have made you sit on it.”

Rabbi’s mouth was dry. He remembered the feel of Calamita’s hand on him, grabbing at his ass. He pushed it away; it was too easy to imagine. His lips pulled back and he bared his teeth. “I shoulda made you beg for it, you mean.”

That drew a reaction out of him, outsized and nearly grand. It was what did him in: a quickly bitten-off groan, his face screwed up as if in pain. His come splattered onto the floor.

After, it was all business. Hell, maybe there was no delineation, no horizon line to be sought between business and anything else. That was a miserable thought for later. Calamita pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, as brightly white as his shirt. He wiped off his hand and then his cock before he put himself away. Put himself back together. Ruefully, Rabbi thought there was a greater intimacy to found in witnessing this, a man’s private ablutions, than all that came before and between them. If Calamita felt the same, he hid it behind a brief wash of self-conscious prickliness. He adjusted his suspenders, he ran a calm hand through his untouched hair, mussing it himself. When he met Rabbi’s eye, he was as much himself as he had ever been. More so, if possible. 

“Gaetano, you know,” Calamita said. “He wanted proof of your loyalty.”

“Did I fail?”

Calamita lifted one shoulder, his face wry and unreadable. He shrugged that off, too. He spat onto the floor. “Take care of that,” he said.

That was the problem with tempers and this family, for Calamita was as much a Fadda as Rabbi wasn’t. They thought they still retained power even after showing abject weakness. Rabbi said nothing to him. He watched Calamita’s retreating back, his gait loose and unconcerned as he left him. It was only when he was gone, when he heard the heavy tread on the stairs above, that Rabbi picked up a rag. He took to his knees. He cleaned up his mess.


End file.
